Asher is a Lifer, a
slave aboard the spaceship Pelican. A member of the lowest rung of
society, she must serve the ship’s Officials and Astronauts as
punishment for her grandparents' crimes back on Earth. The one thing
that made life bearable was her illicit relationship with Samuai, a
Fishie boy, but he died alongside her brother in a freak training
accident.

Still grieving for the loss of her loved ones, Asher is
summoned to the upper levels to wait on Lady, the head Official’s wife
and Samuai’s mother. It is the perfect opportunity to gather intel for
the Lifer’s brewing rebellion. There’s just one problem—the last girl
who went to the upper levels never came back.

On the other side
of the universe, an alien attack has left Earth in shambles and a group
called The Company has taken control. Blank wakes up in a pond
completely naked and with no memory, not even his real name. So when a
hot girl named Megs invites him to a black-market gaming warehouse where
winning means information, he doesn’t think twice about playing. But
sometimes the past is better left buried.

As Asher and Blank’s
worlds collide, the truth comes out—everyone has been lied to. Bourne
Identity meets Under the Never Sky in this intergalactic tale of love
and deception from debut novelist

I’m
pleased to be here today to talk about my path to become an author.
Lifer is truly a book of my heart and like any story it begins a long,
long time before page one.

I’ve always written
stories. From the moment I made my mom cry with a short story in high
school, I became addicted to sharing stories and emotions through words.
However as I grew older, my love of science as well seemed to make a
more logical career path. I loved the science degree I studied at
university and completed honours and a PhD but I always wrote. Mostly
short fiction back then including a short story about a boy waking naked
in a garden – he’d later become Blank in Lifer.

It
wasn’t until I left university that a friend and I ‘decided we’d write a
whole book’. Yes, we thought it would be easy. It wasn’t at all.

But then I was hooked.

And
I wrote another book. I did craft courses online and at the local
writers’ center. I went to conferences. Most importantly I made friends
who were on the same path. Some of those became crit partners and they
helped me with my stories and with keeping going in the face of
rejection. That learning time was important – I learned to treasure the
people in the business, to keep learning and studying and then finally I
returned to that short story and wrote a book in a genre I loved and
that I would want to read.

Some days the words don’t
come as I’d like but I know that I’m writing something I love, and it
makes it easier to turn up and put my fingers on the keyboard and keep
writing. It makes taking my crit partners and agents and publishers
suggestions as ingredients to make the book stronger rather than
criticisms.

The other important thing for me is to never stop reading, and reading widely.

I always wanted to write. I’ve worked as a lab assistant, a pizza
delivery driver and a high school teacher but I always pursued my first
dream of creating stories. Now, I live with my family near Adelaide,
halfway between the city and the sea, and am lucky to spend my days (and
nights) writing young adult fiction.

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Addicted Readers receives ARC's (Advanced Reader Copies) from authors and publishers in exchange for an honest review. No compensation of any kind is exchanged. And every opinion express is my own and is not influenced in any way.